Curtain Calls: Masquers’ dark comedy ‘God of Carnage’ both hilarious and poignant

Many of us have had the unpleasant task of meeting other parents to apologize for our child’s behavior. I can recall more than once dragging my son to a meeting with another child and his parents to make amends for throwing a ball or rock way too accurately and injuring someone. Fortunately, as he got older, we were able to channel his strong left arm to the baseball field.

Happily, none of my meetings turned out like the one in Yasmina Reza’s dark comedy “God of Carnage,” which quickly descends from a civil meeting into more savage behavior.

Intelligently directed by Chris Rubingh, the funny and thought-provoking show runs through Sept. 29 at the Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond.

Reza, the award-winning French playwright, actress and novelist, often reflects on middle-class values in her work, which is certainly true in this one. “God of Carnage” follows the aftermath of a fight between two 11-year-old boys which resulted in physical injuries to one of them. The show begins when the injured boy’s parents invite the other boy’s parents to their home to discuss the incident.

Scenic designer Christopher Jones has taken the upscale living room and, literally, made it into a boxing ring. He has added a wooden frame that encases the room in a square which actors must step over when entering and exiting. When they leave the “ring” to get props, they never completely leave the stage but rather go to their “corner” where the stage crew brings them whatever props they need. Very clever.

Under Rubingh’s direction, the skilled actors create fascinating characters with Katharine Otis as Veronica, the mother of the injured boy who can’t stop reminding everyone what her son has suffered. Tony Daniel is her husband Michael, a self-made wholesaler constantly distracted by calls from his unwell mother. Both seem quite pleased with themselves for hosting this meeting with the offending boy’s parents.

A marvelous Allison Gamlen portrays Annette in a role ranging from diplomacy to anger to drunkenness to throwing up, which she manages to make quite funny. Todd Duda as her husband Alan is a riot as the busy lawyer discussing strategies for keeping his pharmaceutical client from taking the blame when one of its medications proves dangerous. Alan’s shifting of blame for his clients forms an interesting high-stakes parallel to the fight between the young boys, especially when Michael realizes his mother is taking the tainted medicine.

“God of Carnage” manages to be hilarious and poignant as it deals with integrity or lack thereof and the decline of civility. For tickets to this fascinating piece of theater, call 510-232-3888 or go to masquers.org.

Berkeley: The Aurora Theatre and playwright Jonathan Spector took the real-life controversy over vaccinations and turned it into an international sensation and a soon-to-be Broadway play. “Eureka Day” premiered at the Aurora in 2018 before going on to successful runs across the country, off-Broadway and even the Old Vic in London. It opens at Broadway’s Manhattan Theatre Club this December. Spector’s hilarious-yet-heart-wrenching play is set in a Berkeley elementary school divided by disagreement over the safety and efficacy of vaccinations.

If you’d like to see the Broadway production, you can join Aurora Artistic Director Josh Costello and the playwright on a New York City theatre tour Dec. 12-15. If that’s not possible, the theater will present a reading of the play with the original cast at its fundraising event Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre.

For more information and tickets to either event, go to auroratheatre.org.

San Rafael: Oakland Theater Project continues its 2024 season with Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Angels in America, Parts I and II.” Directed by OTP’s Co-Artistic Director Michael Socrates Moran, the American epic will be performed at Marin Shakespeare Company’s new indoor theater in San Rafael Sept. 27 through Oct. 27. OTP’s theater in Oakland is a very small, intimate space incapable of housing such an ambitious project.

“As we approach the upcoming election, we are once again faced with the prospect that our politics have extraordinary personal consequences for each of us individually and for all of us collectively,” said Moran. “When looking for an American classic that might speak to this moment — one where we are walking on the knife’s edge toward an uncertain future filled with both terror and possibility in equal measure — ‘Angels in America’ reveals itself as an uncanny prophecy for our political moment, demanding we face impossible hopelessness with hope, agency and action.”

“Angels in America” can be seen separately or back to back on select dates. For complete information and tickets, go to oaklandtheaterproject.org.

Reach Sally Hogarty at sallyhogarty@gmail.com, and read more of her reviews online at eastbaytimes.com/author/sally-hogarty.